


All Fall Down

by Augustus



Series: Best Enemies [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Slash, Prologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9326639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: Draco thinks it began on the first day of school. Draco is wrong.ABest Enemiessnippet from Harry's POV, set before the prologue, Downfall. Could be read as a stand alone, though.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A little piece taken from before the main story of Best Enemies, largely written on a London to Newcastle train ;)

Draco will tell you it all began on the first day of our final year at Hogwarts, but he's wrong. It actually began during the summer before it, the summer that I fulfilled my so-called destiny and killed Voldemort.

There had been minor skirmishes all year, hexes exchanged at professional Quidditch matches and a lot of accusations in the press, but there were no deaths until the summer and, even then, it felt like a true confrontation was a long way away. But then Death Eaters took the ministry and things rapidly snowballed until I found myself in a field somewhere outside Swindon with several of my parents' old comrades dead on the grass behind me and magic sparking in the air.

I first saw him during a lull in the fighting, standing with his parents to the side of the battle. Even from a distance, I could see that his father was berating him for some reason. Lucius Malfoy was gesturing towards the centre of the field while Draco stood, nodding, beside him, his slight frame curled in on itself like a dog awaiting a beating. And yet, at the same time, there was something so eager on his face, a combination of hero worship and a desire to please. It was odd that I would even notice, given the circumstances, but stranger still that I felt a pang of sympathy as I watched my enemy shrink before his father's gaze.

I remembered, then, the other times that I had seen father and son together—the way that Draco had aped his father's moves and looked to him for approval after every statement. I had always just dismissed it as yet another obnoxious Malfoy trait but, watching them across that field, I wondered whether Draco had ever been allowed any other choice. It seemed that he wanted to be there no more than I did, and that he was compelled, not by fate or a stupid prophecy, but by a father who wanted a clone and not a son.

He looked so lost, so defeated, that I couldn't hate him. For the first time, I truly saw the origins of his bigotry and, while I could never condone it, I could at least understand how it had come to be.

I watched Draco until a ball of fire passed close beside my head and Hermione, tut-tutting, pulled me into better cover. And, when the fighting intensified again, I found myself somehow hoping that he'd survive. It seemed unfair that he should suffer due to a choice he'd likely never had the chance to make. 

If that had been all, things probably would have gone on much as before. I might not have intentionally antagonised him quite as often, but understanding the origins of a person's hatefulness doesn't erase it, and Draco's selfish outlook had always bothered me as much as his free use of the word 'Mudblood'. No, it began later, when the minor hexes had turned to unforgivables and my body and mind ached from the strain of staying alive.

I don't know where Lucius was at that point—somewhere safe, most likely—but Draco and his mother were on the fringe of the fighting, focusing on defensive magic from the few glimpses that I could see. Narcissus stood with her body slightly in front of her son's and their pale skin and silvery hair seemed too bright for the darkness of the day.

I don't know who cast the curse, but I heard the word shouted from somewhere on my left. It was loud enough that the Malfoys heard it too, but Narcissa was caught off guard, expecting any threats to come from a more central angle.With Narcissa unable to protect herself in time, the  _Crucio_ curse would have struck her unchecked, if Draco had not thrown himself between his mother and the spell.

Voldemort wasn't far away from me and the hexes were so thick that I was fighting back to back with Hermione and Ron just to stay upright, but I couldn't look away from the sight of my enemy being brought to the ground by waves of unspeakable pain. And all to keep his mother unharmed.

The scar on my forehead pulsed. I remembered how my father had died trying to protect my mother and me and how my mother's sacrifice had allowed me to live. I also remembered the times that Draco had defended Pansy Parkinson from my housemates' teasing, and the way that he was always helping Crabbe and Google in class. I remembered, and I realised that Draco wasn't selfish at all; it was just that our loyalties ran along different lines.

I realised this just as I was also noticing how fragile his slim body seemed as it tried to withstand the power of the curse, and how he looked so much more human with his hair falling forward over his eyes instead of slicked neatly back against his head. I saw the strength in his pointed chin and the way that his exposed forearms were not skinny, as I had always assumed, but rather wiry with muscle from flying and Quidditch.

I looked at him properly for the first time, and my stomach clenched, my heart pounding a little harder in my chest. "Bloody hell, Harry," I muttered. "Of all the people..." But it was too late. There were killing curses flying everywhere, and there I was, grinning stupidly across the battlefield, completely unaware.

And later, as Voldemort fell to the only _Avada Kedavra_ that I hope I'll ever have to say, I was overwhelmed with grief and loss and the knowledge that nothing would ever be quite the same. Around me, people were stirring, as though woken from a dream. Hermione wiped blood from her cheek with a shirt that Ron had offered, someone pulled a coat over Mad-Eye Moody's prone body, and Narcissa Malfoy smoothed the hair back from Draco's drawn and shadowed face.

I felt ancient and freshly-birthed at the same time. I stood there, victorious, at the conclusion of one story and waited for a new one to begin.


End file.
